In November in San Francisco, US district judge Charles Breyer is reported to have said that these shareholders could pursue a separate lawsuit against Hewlett-Packard and chief executive Meg Whitman for failing to reveal that the company may have overpaid for Autonomy or the suspected fraud.

The deal is also under investigation by UK and US financial authorities. HP was given until January 17 to vote on whether to try to have claims against its officers and directors dismissed, or to attempt to recoup its losses by joining the claims.

Reuters reported that HP’s US court filing said it had “made decisions with respect to the actions that it deems to be in the best interests of the company and its shareholders”, but the company had asked for another six weeks to work out its legal approach.

Mr Lynch has repeatedly denied the allegations. He said last year: “HP came in with about 300 people, crawled over everything and you know what? They found nothing. And you know why? There was nothing to find.”

UPDATE: A spokeswoman from HP confirmed that both parties would be using the extra time to review their legal approach to the issue.